TREKCORE > GAMING > SHATTERED UNIVERSE > TrekCore Review

ARTICLE: Shattered Universe Review
AUTHOR: Virogen
DATE: June 13, 2004
RATING: 50 / 100

I really wanted to like the last new Star Trek game we will see for a couple years, especially considering how the game was cancelled and brought back to life by StarSphere.  After that, I really thought it was saved for a reason; that it would be a great game that would prove to everyone that there was life in the Trek gaming franchise.  Unfortunately, this is not the case…

Shattered Universe starts its disappointing journey with an intro movie that features plastic, unrealistic, undetailed CGI versions of familiar characters Sulu and Chekov.  The story can be found in full here, but the short version is that Sulu and the crew of the Excelsior get transposed into the Mirror Universe and have to fight their way back…  Overall, I found the story to be rather bland; there are only two characters in the game (Sulu and Chekov), so you there is no richly developed Mirror Universe to get lost in.  There are rendered cut scenes throughout the game, however the cut scenes are so visually dreadful that it might have been better to not have them at all.  Now this was likely unavoidable because good rendered scenes cost money that Trek games generally do not get, but these cut scenes really prevented the game from establishing the feeling of being in the Trek universe.

In-game the graphics fare much better.  The starship models are quite well done and have a good amount of detail.  By far the best part of Shattered Universe is blasting the hull of the capital ships as you fly within metres of the hull.  The sense of scale is great in the game; flying along a capital ship really makes you feel like you’re taking on a massive ship.  There are also great effects for battle damage as you destroy the ships.  I wish the damage would reflect where you hit the ship like in Bridge Commander, but it’s scripted so that no matter what part of the ship you hit, certain sections show damage in a certain order.

Control-wise I found the ships to handle very easily and very intuitively.  The only difference is that you cannot select different weapon systems on a ship.  You launch with at most three different weapon types; these weapons are always pre-determined depending on the ship you choose.  Thus the controls are simpler than Invasion’s were.  However, I preferred Invasion’s controls because the freedom to switch between weapons during a mission added another dimension to the game.   Another feature from Invasion missing in Shattered Universe is the double-tap warp.  I found it to be very useful because you could quickly get away and set yourself up for another run at a starship.  In Shattered Universe, it takes more time to “run away”, so I usually ended up forwarding and reversing while shooting, which seems unrealistic to me. 

One of the biggest problems in the game is tedious, repetitive gameplay, usually accompanied by terrible level design.  Basically, the game is all about shooting at wave after wave of fighters, and then capital ships.  Repeat for 20 missions and you have Shattered Universe.  Invasion at least tried to vary it more by having missions like flying inside a Borg Cube.  Not in Shattered Universe.  All you get are different backgrounds for fighting…  Oh, and if you want a break from shooting at ships, there are a couple levels where you fly around and destroy asteroids to collect minerals.  Aside from this ridiculously lame level concept, the developers felt that having you be attacked by squadrons (for no reason) in between destroying different asteroids would make the levels entertaining.  In one of these asteroid levels, you destroy asteroids and squadrons for 15 minutes (BTW, it’s no challenge to this) and then the last 5 minutes of the level is an insanely hard fight against Klingons and Orions.  You die and you have to REPEAT the tedious 15 minutes of the mission to get another shot at the challenging part because there is no save option.  I guess you have to lengthen the game somehow…

Not to say the battles are not fun.  They are quite intense and fast paced; it’s just that you feel that you’re doing the same thing over and over except against different ships…  Then they throw very difficult missions at you that make you waste hours of repeating the level.  I say it’s a waste because it seems like luck when you actually manage to beat them, and not because of increased skill…

Sound wise Shattered Universe is a mix of terrible sound effects to great sound effects.  For example, there’s a horrible low quality typewriter noise whenever your objectives change.  There’s also an incredibly annoying warning klaxon that goes off whenever you are too near a planet; and while this klaxon blares out your speakers, you have to endure Sulu’s 500th warning that you have entered a gravity well and that you should proceed with caution.  Developers: ONLY have this voice over the first couple times you enter the gravity well, but not EVERY SINGLE TIME for the entire game!  And have the klaxon go off after a couple times.  I mean, there is a visual indicator for it, why continue to annoy the player?  Otherwise the game’s sound is great.  Weapons fire sounds like it has punch and the explosions (especially of the capital ships) are very satisfying to hear. 

The last of my annoyances with the game have to do with the cool sounding capital ship explosions.  Whenever a capital ship explodes, the camera cuts to a far off view of the ship as it explodes.  While this looks and sounds very cinematic, gameplay is not paused during it.  That is, the enemy continues to pummel you and the Excelsior for the 7 seconds or so that it takes you watch the capital ship explode.  This is unbelievably annoying as there are times when you fail the mission as a result of what happens in those 7 seconds when you have no control over what is going on.  I liked watching the explosions, but the developers should have given the option to skip them or turn them off.

One of the best qualities of Shattered Universe is revisiting old enemies and situations from the TOS and movies eras.  For example, you face the doomsday machine, the amoeba from The Immunity Syndrome, and the M5 computer from The Ultimate Computer.  There is also a wormhole level which recreates the wormhole effect from The Motion Picture.  This level was particularly interesting because your ship is tossed around a bit in the wormhole while you fight.  The best part of the game is definitely having George Takei and Walter Koenig voice their characters, even if the dialog is mundane.

Shattered Universe is at best mediocre.  The negatives really overpower the positives and you would be best to spend your money on more engaging and entertaining titles.  SU really offers nothing new in terms of gameplay or graphics or anything.  Period.  The only reason to buy it is to hear two Trek veterans reprise their roles and to play some scenarios previously seen in classic Trek.  It’s a renter as there is no replay value and you could easily finish it in a couple days using the cheat codes…

Rating: 50 out of 100

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